I like Sheffield. If you were to let me host a BBC4 programme called 'British Cities that are reet in my opinion*' I'd include Sheffield as it's one part Victorian industrial magnificence, one part 60s retrofuturistic madness and one part generic modern european scale. It has hills, trams, glass covered buildings, metal things and loads of derelict stuff. It's kind of like if Halifax bred with an architecture brochure and spawned a giant mad mixed up offspring. Which is good. Even though it doesn't sound it. It's got loads of culture and music and that, but unlike Manchester and Liverpool it doesn't seem trapped in a relentless self referential loop of its own nostalgia. It reminds me of Glasgow in a way, in that fancy stuff brushes up with rough stuff. It's sort of like Bristol if Bristol didn't live off a trust fund.
*I'd be kind of like Michael Portillo minus the incredulity at meeting actual people and mad coloured kecks. If you are reading at the BBC, hit me up. It'll be good.
Anyway, that's by the by. You don't not pay me to find out what I think of Sheffield. You want football. Big leathery football words. Sweaty wintergreen scented football sentences. Penalty spots for full stops. That sort of thing.
So... I'm really not convinced we can keep winning. Beating Blackburn, beating Preston, the Reading comeback. All of it (especially the Preston bit). It feels like we've used up too much happiness. We're bound to come back to earth soon. Today's feels a good day for it to happen. Not that it would be good, but you know what I mean. They're a decent side masquerading as a shit one. They've got players you've heard of and a manager who has done it before. Surely the players and the manager will click into sync sooner or later plus, we haven't beaten them for ages. In other words, I'm travelling more in hope than expectation.
That's fine. I don't want to carried away. It's only football. We're way ahead of where I thought we'd be. We've done fucking well, considering we've got a youth coach and his youth coach mate and a load of has beens and never weres and Bradford City's ex ex ex manager. We're doing unbelievably well in this big money filled league full of continental sorts and crazy contracts and thus, I'm not going to chuck my toys out the pram when we don't win a game. So, through the wind and the rain we go, to sing and get behind them, whatever the day may bring.
Critch goes 442 and that's fine. He goes unchanged and that's fine too. He can do what he wants. He's earned the right. In my bones, I feel like 4231 is a better bet, but I don't know. I've not sat up for hours analysing videos or done the training sessions or owt. I've just written some shite in my blog and tweeted a bit. So what I think doesn't matter. It's sunny. The ground is almost full. There is nowhere on earth I'd rather be and whatever will be, will be. Let the world fuck off for 90 minutes. Just as it should be.
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From the off, it's clear this isn't really set up to be a football classic. For all that Bramhall Lane is a cracking ground, a proper place, an antidote to the soulless out of town bowls, it's not really very easy to work out what's happening at the other end of the pitch (or even the middle of the pitch) from the fourth row of the away end.
What I can make out is that we're in a battle. The Blades clearly like to press and there's no time for anyone on the ball. They're also neat, tidy and quite clever when they have it. If anything, this first half is kind of what I expected the Championship to be. We look a bit ragged at times and seem to live on our wits, pressed and harried by a side who look technically better than us.
Bowler is so quiet he might as well not be playing. Almost every time he gets it, they're onto him so he's got no chance to accelerate and either loses the ball or shuttles it backwards. At the other end, Husband is stretching everything several times to make tackles at the last and their nippy movement up front is requiring Keogh to read several moves ahead to have any chance of being in the right place at the right time.
Their finishing is not their strong point. They work one across the box and put it straight at Grimshaw. Another good chance arises and they manage to kick it against one of their own men and out for a goal kick.
At the other end, nothing really happens until Big Gaz breaks through and forces some kind of save or block, who knows really, it was miles away but it brings an 'oooooh' and a renewal of energy. We trade blows on a level footing with them for a while. Keshi gets a bit of joy on the left, Husband buts a handy looking ball in. Gabriel has a bit of a run, Jerry gets through but is offside - basically, we do ok-ish, but nothing we do really resembles a chance.
Then they score. A ball whipped in, a dart onto it and a header into the bottom corner. It was the sort of goal I imagined conceding in the championship. A well executed, ruthless bit of play. I respond by eloquently shouting 'Fuuuuck' at the blue sky and just as I finish my poetic outburst and return to viewing the pitch, I notice the linesman and his highlighter pen yellow shirt, hanging his flag out like a lycra clad cyclist demonstrating how to do semaphore. He's saying 'no goal' in flag language.
That'll do nicely.
I'd hoped that might bring us into it more, but it doesn't. The Blades come forward again, but their lack of cutting edge (sorry) means they can only fanny about not shooting or blast it inches wide when they do finally have a go. At one point, they keep us penned in for a good four or five minutes without really creating a clear cut effort.- it's both clear why they were recently a Premier League side and clear why they are no longer a Premier League side. At one point, I almost want to shout 'shoot' myself, so evidently keen are they to shuttle it to someone else, lest they be the one to miss. Their hesitancy in shooting seems to infect our defence who are weirdly hesitant to clear it a few times, leading to the weird spectacle of a side who aren't really sure they actually want to score coming up against a defence who've temporarily forgotten how to stop them from doing what they aren't sure they want to do.
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I'm very pleased it's 0-0. We've done ok but the pressure has grown as the half has gone on and I'm not sure we can stay the same and hope for a different outcome. Madine has toiled (well, he's trotted about and jumped a bit, but that's Gaz and we love him deeply for it) but virtually all the rest of the attackers seem to have barely touched the ball.
Bowler is so quiet he might as well not be playing. Almost every time he gets it, they're onto him so he's got no chance to accelerate and either loses the ball or shuttles it backwards. At the other end, Husband is stretching everything several times to make tackles at the last and their nippy movement up front is requiring Keogh to read several moves ahead to have any chance of being in the right place at the right time.
Their finishing is not their strong point. They work one across the box and put it straight at Grimshaw. Another good chance arises and they manage to kick it against one of their own men and out for a goal kick.
At the other end, nothing really happens until Big Gaz breaks through and forces some kind of save or block, who knows really, it was miles away but it brings an 'oooooh' and a renewal of energy. We trade blows on a level footing with them for a while. Keshi gets a bit of joy on the left, Husband buts a handy looking ball in. Gabriel has a bit of a run, Jerry gets through but is offside - basically, we do ok-ish, but nothing we do really resembles a chance.
Then they score. A ball whipped in, a dart onto it and a header into the bottom corner. It was the sort of goal I imagined conceding in the championship. A well executed, ruthless bit of play. I respond by eloquently shouting 'Fuuuuck' at the blue sky and just as I finish my poetic outburst and return to viewing the pitch, I notice the linesman and his highlighter pen yellow shirt, hanging his flag out like a lycra clad cyclist demonstrating how to do semaphore. He's saying 'no goal' in flag language.
That'll do nicely.
I'd hoped that might bring us into it more, but it doesn't. The Blades come forward again, but their lack of cutting edge (sorry) means they can only fanny about not shooting or blast it inches wide when they do finally have a go. At one point, they keep us penned in for a good four or five minutes without really creating a clear cut effort.- it's both clear why they were recently a Premier League side and clear why they are no longer a Premier League side. At one point, I almost want to shout 'shoot' myself, so evidently keen are they to shuttle it to someone else, lest they be the one to miss. Their hesitancy in shooting seems to infect our defence who are weirdly hesitant to clear it a few times, leading to the weird spectacle of a side who aren't really sure they actually want to score coming up against a defence who've temporarily forgotten how to stop them from doing what they aren't sure they want to do.
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I'm very pleased it's 0-0. We've done ok but the pressure has grown as the half has gone on and I'm not sure we can stay the same and hope for a different outcome. Madine has toiled (well, he's trotted about and jumped a bit, but that's Gaz and we love him deeply for it) but virtually all the rest of the attackers seem to have barely touched the ball.
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Obviously, Critch doesn't change it. Critch never changes it at this point. Again, why should he give a fuck what I think? He sends them out nice and early. We're clearly keen to get on with it and into them.
When I say 'get on with it and into them' I mean 'resume where we left off, defending desperately' as the Blades come out determined to slice us open (sorry again.) They make numerous opportunities, they seem to overwhelm our midfield and be able to play up the middle and from a move, where we get a half foot on the ball but no more, they spin it quickly through a few players, out wide, then back in and Dan Grimshaw makes a tremendous sprawling stop. I'm miles away, but I can see how good it is, coming from a vicious snap shot hit low to his right that he doesn't just stop, but also turns away from the onrushing forwards.
Then, they hit the bar. Again they work it quickly, again the shot is hard from inside the area but (I think) Keogh slides in and gets enough of touch to turn it onto the crossbar. It absolutely smacks the woodwork, you can feel the bar flex from the other end of the ground. Still, they come. We're getting stuck in. Husband is in at the death, Keough is sprawling and pointing and heading. Marvin is Marvin, Jordan Gabriel is some kind of ninja the way he leaps about ten feet in the air to win long balls. They miss another chance at the far post, a shot flashed wide that really should have been better.
Critch has had enough. Bowler comes off and so does Jerry. Both of them have had more joy on a football pitch than today. Sonny Carey and Demi Mitchell come on. I like this substitution. Mitchell is gritty as well as skillful and Carey is an extra body deeper which we need.
We get a bit more possession. We have a shot or two blocked. Mitchell adds bite where Bowler looked a bit flimsy. Carey is so good with the ball. Still the Blades worry me. We have a free kick. It's tapped to Madine. He weakly dribbles it wide. I'm still worried. I said I wasn't bothered but this is a long time to keep them out and then to not get a point. C'mon Pool.
Oh, for fuck's sake. Here's Billy Sharp. We might as well go home now.
Wintle chips a free kick into the box. It's cleared but Carey has a crack from outside the box, A stunning effort, tipped over the top. Suddenly, the away end is alert. The noise rises. We cheer Demi to the corner flag, we exhort the players in the box to give their all. We're craning our necks to watch the flight of the ball, watching Keogh, Ekpiteta and Madine as they jostle. Demi's corner is terrible, weakly hit to the near post and cleared.
Sheffield United sweep up the pitch. Grimshaw comes out and sweeps the ball back. He's hit a long, direct, Maxwell-esque ball over the top. Keshi has broken from the pack in midfield, he's taken it down. The flag? Surely a flag? No flag. Anderson sprints on, his control wasn't perfect, he needed a moment to gather it and he's being caught. He puts the brakes on. Fucking hell Keshi, that was a chance. Now he's going to knock it back to the full back isn't he? No, wait, he's put the brakes on yes, but he's cut back inside now, he's taking a shot, he's connecting with it perfectly, the ball is travelling, it's arcing perfectly beyond the keeper's fingers, it's curling inside the post, it's fucking well nestling in the top corner, it's dropping to the ground and we are going insane.
Keshi is sprinting away to the corner. Fans are spilling down the steps. The air is punched. Throats are screamed raw. Advertising boards are clamboured or fallen over. There's a little spill over onto the pitch. We're delirium. We're out of control. We're chanting. We're chanting. We're one big noise. Lads been collared and led away by the stewards are chanting too. Everything went a bit hazy for a while.
How the fuck have we done that? Who cares. We have. What happens next, is in no particular order. The noise from the away end is tremendous. Gary Madine adds more to his career shithousery highlights, including a terrific blatant push on a lad who is going to retrieve the ball and brilliant pointless row about a corner that was never a corner where he picks the ball up, marches to the corner flag as if he's going to take the corner that wasn't and wastes a good twenty seconds incredulously responding to the linesman before getting pushed over himself by their keeper so he spills the ball and lets it roll away which is exactly what Gary wanted to happen. Madine plays a ball I could literally cry over it was so good, but Mitchell is just a split second too slow to respond to. The defenders defend. The midfielders tackle. Kenny rats, Wintle strokes it about. It's all good.
The time is running out. They lose a player to injury. They've used all their subs. There's 5 minutes left. They loft it forward. We clear it. They loft it forward. We faff about a bit, but then we clear it. We're in charge of this now. Their heads are gone. We're running forward, Demi is drawing a free kick. There's seconds left. I think we're actually going to do this. The ball is somewhere. I don't care where as it's not near our goal. The ref has blown. Has he? Yes! He has! Fucking hell Pool!
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I don't care how we won it. We did. The change was important and came, in retrospect, at the right time, but we did incredibly well to stay in that game. I've only been really impressed with first half Bournemouth and Coventry so far this year. Huddersfield were ok and Cardiff bullied us into submission, but Sheffield Utd were a striker away from looking like one of the best sides we've played.
What amazes me is the character of the side. Yeah, ok, we didn't have the balance of play, but we won. We kept on keeping on. Keshi is just incredible. Every goal contribution has been ridiculous. The mad finish in the league cup, the stupidly clever falling assist, the weird curling golf putter finish against PNE and then this beauty.
Keogh deserves a mention, this was a hard game for him today. Clearly they targeted him in the first half, slipping their extra man in midfield forward with pace but he reads the game so well that he coped, he prospered. The rest of the defence cleary deserve credit too but Dan Grimshaw played really, really well. His kicking was sure footed and accurate and he made a superb stop and several other really competent ones. Sonny Carey continues to defy logic by looking so incredibly calm and adapting to this level of football and made a real impact when he came on, in a way that conventional football logic should dictate he just wouldn't. Madine was the definition of unselfish and as ever, horrible to play against but his defensive contribution from set pieces was particularly magnificent.
I'm still convinced that we're going to hit reality sooner or later, but looking at the table, of the teams we've played who are beneath us, there's only really Cardiff who've thoroughly outplayed us. Which is weird. Where has the fear of the division gone? Am I actually starting to believe we can do this? I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe. Who knows? Perhaps? Probably not. But then again?
Fuck it. Just enjoy the ride. The downs make the ups. Enjoy it all. A perfect smash and grab is a filthy delight to behold.
utmp
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